The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

According to his wife, former Acting Minister of Defence in Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, , Valery Ivashchenko is not receiving medical treatment either in the SIZO [detention centre] where he has been held in custody for 18 months, or outside it.

Ms Ivashchenko was refuting the statement by Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka that her husband was receiving all the care he needed, and that accusations against the State Penitentiary Service of not providing such care were biased. Ms Ivashchenko said that the only detail that was true in Pshonka’s remarks was that her husband had been examined outside the SIZO.

Valery Ivashchenko has been in detention for over a year. He is charged with having, in November 2009 while Acting Minister of Defence abused his position by signing a plan to sell the Feodosia Marine Engineering Works which was property of the Ministry of Defence. Please see the Second Preliminary Report by the Danish Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, where Valery Ivashchenko’s case is one of those examined.